


it's supposed to be like this

by mambo



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Actually Probably More Hurt Than Comfort, And Somehow This Happened, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, I Had A Bad Week, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Sex, um
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-03
Updated: 2014-08-03
Packaged: 2018-02-11 15:55:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2074173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mambo/pseuds/mambo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And when you try to fall asleep that night there’s something tingling in your tummy and the moon seems too bright outside your window. You press your index finger to your bottom lip and you think of the way that your ma kisses your da and the way that you kissed little Stevie Rogers on the lips just that afternoon. You don’t fall asleep for a real long time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's supposed to be like this

The first time, you’re ten. He’s gotten himself beat up again and even though you managed to scare those kids away, Stevie’s got a big black eye.

“‘M not cryin’,” he tells you through his tears. His eyes blue in the afternoon sun. It’s your favorite color.

“I know,” you say, hauling him up to his feet. “Yeah, I know, but we still gotta get you home.”

He sniffles. “How’s it look?” he asks.

It’s a real shiner, already turning purple. It’s gonna swell up real bad and you’re gonna have to find some ice for it, somewhere. Nobody owes little Bucky Barnes any favors, but you’ve got a few tricks you can use. “It ain’t pretty,” you say. Steve’s face gets redder, like it does when he’s upset and you add, “No Stevie, you didn’t let me finish. It ain’t pretty but it ain’t worse than that time Charlie Watson gave me a real bad one. You remember that?” Steve nods, even cracks a smile with his bloody lip. “Not even my ma wanted t’look at me after that one. And you remember what Becky said when I got home?”

“Said you were a monster.” Steve’s voice is pretty strong, even if he is sniffling. That’s good, you know. That means his asthma ain’t working up.

You nod. “You ain’t no monster, Stevie.”

And then you do something different. You pull Steve close and you press your mouth to his wheat-colored hair. You’ve never seen a wheat field in person, but you’re sure that his hair is the same color. You’ve seen pictures. And something about little Steve Rogers makes you think of how nice it would be to see a wheat field. But only with him. You want to see him breathe clean air, see the bright sun. “You’re fine,” you say, not sure who you’re convincing, just knowing that when your ma kisses you that way you feel good. You feel good doing it to Steve, too, thinking that maybe it’ll make him feel a bit better, make him stop crying. You wanna make him happy, is all.

He squirms under your touch.

“Cut it out,” he says. You look down and there’s a different kind of hot redness on his cheeks. He’s blushing.

“You don’t like it?” you ask, grinning as you hold onto Steve’s skinny arms to keep him from getting away. “Want me to stop?”

“You’re only supposed to kiss girls like that,” Steve says, looking down at his feet and—

And.

“Who says?” Bucky asks, bending down and pecking Steve right on his trembling pink lips. You pull up, bite down on your own bottom lip. Then you smile. “Nobody tells me what to do, least of all you, Stevie Rogers!”

You dance around and he punches your arm and stammers around the word ‘jerk’.

And when you try to fall asleep that night there’s something tingling in your tummy and the moon seems too bright outside your window. You press your index finger to your bottom lip and you think of the way that your ma kisses your da and the way that you kissed little Stevie Rogers on the lips just that afternoon. You don’t fall asleep for a real long time.

**…**

The next time it happens, you’re fourteen.

You’re in the alleyway behind the school and Margie Thompson teaches you all sorts of new stuff before she pats your cheek and sends you on your way. She’s sixteen with red hair in perfect curls and wearing a plaid skirt. She’s got a boyfriend, sure, but he wasn’t there and you were. She thinks you’re good-looking. You know that you are.

You walk a block, then two and realize that you’re on your way over to Steve’s place. You always go to Steve’s place after school, even when he ain’t sick. It’s what you do.

“You’re late,” he says when you walk in. A year ago his ma made you a key, for those days that she has to work and Steve can’t get up to get the door by himself. When you walk in, Steve doesn’t even look up at you. Never assumes that it’s anybody but you walking through the door. He’s got a sketchpad out on the kitchen table. Like usual, you can’t see what he’s drawing, and by the time that you get close enough to maybe see, he has it all closed up. He used to show you his drawings, all full of pride. You used to be able to tell when he thought one was good or bad by the way he looked at you when he handed over. You don’t have a good eye for art, but you’ve been able to read Steve Rogers from day one. But now he doesn’t show you, like his art’s something private, something he’s embarrassed of. Or it’s something that he just doesn’t want to share with you.

Sometimes you think you wanna look at that sketchbook more than anything in the world.

Sometimes you think about wrenching it away from his hands and running off with it, about not giving it back until you’ve committed each drawing to memory well enough that you can flip through its pages in your own head.

You don’t.

“Yeah, yeah,” you say instead, walking over to the chair he’s sitting in. He hasn’t grown much. You look down at him, and think about how you’ve grown. Maybe not as much as some of the other guys in the neighborhood, but inches more than Steve. Steve. Your heart is thudding in your chest as you ask, “Where’s your ma?”

Steve looks up, unimpressed. “Late shift,” he says. “She won’t be back for a while, I don’t think.”

“Huh.” You pause. “I learned something today. It’s real neat. Want me to show you?”

“You learned something, you lunkhead?”

You shove at his shoulder. He laughs. “C’mon. Lemme show you.”

And something in his expression changes when he looks at your face. Steve says, “Sure?” like it’s a question and before he can say anything else, you lean down and kiss him, hand around the back of Steve’s tiny neck. Steve makes a little noise—surprised, you think—but doesn’t push you away. He lets you kiss him. You’re unskilled but take the lead, since he has no idea what he’s doing. He’s nervous, shaking. His lips part with uncertainty and his tongue is static in his own mouth, not knowing where to go, what to do. You pull him up and pick him up. He pulls away long enough to make a fuss, but you deposit him on top of the table, tell him that it’s easier for you this way, and he just gives a curt nod before grabbing your collar with his trembling fingers and pulling you back in.

You kiss Steve’s lips, his jaw, his neck. You bite, but gently, since the last thing anybody needs is for Steve to get a bruise. It’d hurt him, wouldn’t heal quickly and. It’s better if people don’t ask questions, is all. You hold him on either side of his bony ribs, wanting to keep him steady, loving the feeling of his chest expanding in and out against your own warm hands. You love knowing Steve’s breathing. You love knowing that he’s breathing into you, like you’re one creature.

Haven’t you always needed each other to survive?

You pull away, not knowing how long it’s been, but laughing because Steve’s hair is, well, it’s silly. Sticking up all over and it’s your hands that made it that way. It’s cute. You could never tell him. You press your lips to his temple. “You like it?” you ask.

He rests his head against your chest. “Yeah, Buck,” he says.

You wrap your arms around him, since it’s supposed to be like this. Both of you know it, always have, deep in your bones.

It’s supposed to be like this.

**…**

But it isn’t.

**…**

“Forgive me father, for I have sinned.”

**…**

Clutching a rosary, you wonder if there will ever be enough Hail Marys in the world to make up for the look on Steve’s face when you push him aside.

**…**

It’s almost ten years before it happens again. You kiss girls. You let a burly man with strong arms fuck you in an alleyway, up against a brick wall while you choke back tears. You pat Steve’s head, clean out his wounds. You sleep in the same bed on the night his ma dies, arms wrapped around him as he buries his face into your shoulder. He takes shuddering breaths that night. Your breathing is even as your thumb rubs small circles into his shoulder.

You don’t talk about it.

You never talk about it.

You try not to think about it, either. But you do. You think about it all the time. When you see Steve sleeping in the pale morning light. When he sticks a piece of a peach that you pilfered between his lips. You think about it. Just don’t ever act.

Until you’re shooting the shit with your buddies at the auto shop, grease-covered and tired.

“You can fuck ‘em in so many ways,” Billy says. “Up the back, in the mouth. They can grab you real nice. I heard some guys even get off between a woman’s tits, but Claudette hasn’t let me try that one quite yet.”

They laugh and all you can think about is Steve’s warm mouth, the way that he licks over his lips when he’s finishing up his stew. And you think about the thin underpants Steve wears on hot summer nights, the way that he’ll only walk into the room after it’s dark already and how he thinks you don’t realize why. He thinks you can’t see when you can.

Some part of you thinks that maybe he wants you to.

And when you get back to the apartment that night, whiskey on your breath, you find him already in bed.

“Where’ve you been?” he demands, like he’s your little wife, pale and perfect. And you love him more in that moment than you ever have before, and you’ve loved him your whole life. You don’t answer, just stare at him under his worn blue blanket. “You okay?” he asks you. “You’re staring at me.”

“I—“ You swallow, looking at Steve as he sits up. He’s wearing a sleeveless white shirt. You can see the lines of his collarbone, the thin sheen of sweat that’s always there when Steve’s trying to sleep. “You don’t show me your sketchbooks no more.” Your voice cracks. He hasn’t shown you his sketchbooks in years.

Steve raises his eyebrows, pulls himself up to sitting. “Bucky, you’re drunk.”

“Nah,” you say with feigned casualness. Your throat feels tight. “I’m good.”

He swallows. HIs throat moves with it, pale in the moonlight. “You sound drunk,” he decides on.

“I told you, I’m—“

“It’s okay.” He scoots to one side of the bed. “C’mon.”

And even though your bed is just a few steps awayon the other side of the room, you squeeze into Steve’s small bed, body pressed up warm against his. You rest your head on his shoulder. It should be awkward with your pronounced height difference, but it doesn’t matter. It feels right. You breathe against the warm skin of his neck. It would be so easy to move your lips, to press them against that place where you feel for his pulse when he’s sick and can barely breathe. When you can barely breathe at the thought of losing him once and for all.

“Bucky,” Steve asks. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

You think about Billy at the shop and you want to, you want to…

“I’m gonna…” You move closer. “If you want me to stop, tell me Stevie. Just tell me and I’ll stop.”

“What are—“

You press your lips to his, slide a hand up his shirt, firm against his ribcage. He sighs into your mouth and you pull back, letting your lips hover over his, giving him a chance to escape. “No,” he says and your stomach drops. “I mean, yes, no, don’t stop, Bucky. Please. Don’t stop.”

He doesn’t need to tell you twice.

Your hand curls tighter around his side, the other reaches up to the back of his neck, find purchase in the small, blond hairs that tickle the pads of your fingers. You kiss his full lips, pinkish and gentle. He’s too eager, pulling you down to meet him, clicking his teeth against your own. He pushes your shirt up and over your head, gets flustered when it gets caught on your nose. He mutters and swears until it’s off. You laugh, press your forehead against his, feel the thin sheen of sweat that’s collected on the both of you on this balmy Brooklyn night.

He whispers, “Do you remember?”

You say, “Buddy, I haven’t thought of anythin’ but that since.”

His breath catches; you move a hand up to stroke up behind the ear that you know doesn’t hear too well. You whisper the words that scare you to the core of whatever soul you may or many not have. You shut your eyes. You bite down on your lip. You feel relieved, so relived to say it out loud, even if it is only a whisper.

“What was that?” he asks.

“Nothin’,” you say, kissing the ear and behind it, nipping gently on the lobe.

You don’t think about the last time you went to confession, where an old man in black told you that loving your best friend is wrong. You don’t think about the last time you went to church, where the scent of incense clouded your senses as your mother lay in a casket at the front. Steve had grabbed your hand and squeezed it tight, for you were orphans now with only each other to believe in. You don’t think of that.

You don’t think of anything, really, just the feel of Steve— _Steve_ —beneath you, shuddering and panting. You think of how much you love his small hands, artist’s hands, as they fumble with the buttons of your pants, touch your thighs with timidity. You love his breath, for it has always been significant to you, your job to watch as his chest rises and falls, praying to a God that hates you that it continues. It continues. It continues. You love that he tries, that he wants to _participate_ , like this is a back alley game of kickball with tongues and nipples, Steve’s mouth on yours, around yours, but always beneath you.

You love him. You’ve loved him since he was a scrappy seven year-old and now, when he sometimes only barely clings to life but is still resolutely trying to live it. You let it fill you with each touch, swell until you can barely breath with it.

And Steve says, “Please,” like it almost pains him.

“You want?” you ask, sober but still silly.

“C’mon, Buck. _C’mon_.”

You laugh and kiss his bruised mouth quick before moving down along his neck. You wrap your mouth around his nipple and suck; his back arches and you smile, giving it a final lick before you kiss down, down. You pause to nuzzle at the trail of hair on his lower abdomen. You shut your eyes and inhale.

You’ve seen it before, a few times, even if he’s always tried to hide. You live together; it was inevitable. You’ve let your voyeuristic eyes settle on it a moment too long before turning away, filled with red-hot shame, grief, something else that scares you even now, now as you nudge his way down, brace yourself with a hand on each side of Steve’s thin hips and lick the shiny wetness on the tip of Steve’s shaft. Steve whimpers and you runs your tongue from the base of Steve up to the tip, slow and steady. Steve shifts underneath you, breath catching in a way you haven’t heard before.

You thought you knew every way that Steve’s breath could catch.

It makes you pause, just for a moment, filled with a shuddering feeling of gratitude because. Because. You’ve always wanted to. You wrap your mouth around him and he thrusts inside you, unable to help it. You suck and lick and nip until he’s coming, all at once, sweet and salty and perfect. You swallow it down, kiss its tip once it’s over.

But when it’s finished, Steve’s breathing too hard. You straighten up and lift yourself off of him, lay down next to him and press his hair back from his sweaty forehead. “I wanna, I wanna,” he rasps.

“Shh,” you say. “Don’t sweat it, kid.”

“But—“

You press a kiss into his collarbone. “I’m gonna, if that’s okay?”

His breathing evens out. HIs head lays flat against his limp pillow, the pillow that you want so badly to replace, though he won’t let you. It’s bad for his neck. He has enough trouble sleeping already. He won’t let you replace it, says you spend too much on him already. But now, he nods. “I wish I could…” He winces.

“No, no, just…” You kiss the underside of his chin as you take yourself in your own hand. You kiss and kiss and kiss as you stroke yourself, your own breathing becoming shallow as Steve runs a hand down your bare side, the cool feel of it on you skin enough to make you overcome.

You cry and he holds you, strokes your hair and tells you it’s alright, it’s alright, it’s going to be alright.

And in the morning you wake-up alone, face on a pillow that smells like him.

**…**

Years pass and sometimes you even manage to forget.

**…**

You wake-up screaming. Steve is hovering above you, a hand pressing either side of your head, trapping you.

“Bucky, Bucky—“

You grab his broad shoulders, push him away with what little strength you have. “Jesus,” you say, sitting up on the cot they set up for you in _Captain Rogers’s_ quarters. You swing your legs over the edge and sit facing away from Steve, rubbing at your temples.

“Bucky—“

“No,” you say. Your voice breaks. You didn’t mean for it to.

But Steve has never backed down from anything. Your heart aches from it. He sits beside you and wraps an arm around your shoulders. You feel yourself go small and soft next to him, curling into his newly broadened chest. He spreads his hand out in your hair and it’s all you can do not to whimper. “I found you,” he says. “You’re safe now.”

You breathe in, sharp. This person beside you smells like Steve. He has his voice and eyes, but it’s not the same. Not the same. You want _him_ , the small Steve with big dreams who you’ve always known better than yourself, even when you haven’t wanted to know. When he didn’t want you to know, either. You want him back; you want his sweat, his smile. He’s the one who needed you. And who are you if you’re the one screaming in the night, unable to breathe with the panicked sensation of needles pushing their way into your skin. You should be holding him tight in the middle of the night.

“Bucky, breathe for me, buddy. Just breathe for me.”

It’s an echo of words you’ve said a thousand times. You hate it.

But you breathe for him and he rubs warm circles into the back of your neck. He presses his lips against your dirt-covered hair. His lips stay there as moves his other hand to your thigh. You watch his fingers as they press into the scratchy material of your uniform. Your heart beats as he speaks. “Bucky, I thought you were dead. I couldn’t believe you were—“

“Tell me about her,” you say with a voice that sounds far away.

He lifts his head. “Bucky—“ he says, sounding pained.

“Just… tell me about her, Steve.”

He pulls you close, moves his hand from your leg. You can feel his breath on the back of your neck. You have goosebumps. You look at the ground. “She’s real smart, Buck. And…”

You listen to him, heart beating fast in your own chest and wondering whatever happened to your place in this world. Whatever happened to Bucky Barnes, who kissed his best friend on the mouth and knew that it was the end of all things. Who is this person, eyes brimming with tears, pushing the one person he cares about away.

You feel like a monster. Your skin may be the same but you don’t know the person under it or what they might do.

**…**

His sketchbooks are filled with you. He wants to show you, but you fall off that train and you’ll never know. He wants to show you. He just never did.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have many excuses for how this turned out, but if for some reason you want to keep in touch, my Tumblr is whtaft.tumblr.com. It's pretty understandable if you do not, in fact, want to keep in touch.


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